Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger-Chapter 79: EX . Taste Of Vanilla

One of the soldiers, broad-chested and armored, clearly a commanding officer, stepped in front of him. He stared down at Daikaichi, his expression blank.

Then, with a heavy, cracking punch, he struck him across the face, knocking him to the ground once more.

"Record says you’re not part of the main family," the officer said coldly.

"And even if you were... nothing excuses colluding with demons."

Daikaichi’s confidence crumbled as fast as his pride. He looked up at the soldiers holding him, but there was no sympathy in their eyes. Only duty.

"Take him away."

As he was dragged toward the military vehicle outside, Daikaichi screamed.

"You can’t do this to me! Let me go! I’m a Yakomoto!!!"

But it all landed on deaf ears.

The truck door slammed. As the vehicle vanished into the city’s maze of streets.

The commanding officer turned to Leon, adjusting his gloves.

"Thank you for your help, Cadet Kael."

Leon, still calm despite everything, nodded and asked,

"What’s going to happen to him?"

"He’ll be stripped of any affiliation with the Yakomoto family... and charged for demon worship. The minimum punishment is eternal exile. The worst-case... is death."

Leon lowered his gaze slightly. He didn’t say much, he didn’t have to.

The soldier gave him a firm nod, then looked past Leon at Nikko, still standing in the same place as before. She looked like a ghost, silent and trembling, her soul not yet returned to her body.

The soldier’s gaze softened for a second... then he looked away and left without another word.

Now, only two remained in the hollow warehouse.

Leon turned around slowly and walked toward Nikko, whose blank eyes barely registered his approach. Her shoulders were still hunched, her arms hanging by her sides. She hadn’t said a word the entire time.

He stood in front of her for a second, then tilted his head with a gentle smile.

"Hey..."

"You want some ice cream?"

Nikko blinked.

It was the kind of blink that came not from dust or irritation, but from shock, pure and disbelieving. Leon’s simple question echoed in her mind like a whisper in a canyon.

"You want some ice cream?"

For a fleeting second... just a second... the dead look in her eyes cleared.

As if the fog over her soul had briefly parted.

But then, like a candle flickering in the wind, the light disappeared again. The haze returned. Her gaze dropped, her shoulders sagged. That moment of clarity, of life, was gone. But Leon had seen it.

And it was enough.

He didn’t say anything immediately. He just stood there, studying her. The way she stood, motionless, defeated and hollow, it stirred something deep in him. A memory he hadn’t touched in a long time. He remembered looking at himself in the mirror once, back on Earth. Same lifeless stare. Same weight pressing down on his chest. The same question tormenting his thoughts:

"Why am I even here?"

But this world had saved him. Reincarnation gave him a second chance. A new family, new memories, new joy. Maybe he didn’t earn it, but he received it.

And now...

He wanted to give a piece of that joy to someone else.

Even if that someone was the bastard daughter of the Governor, born from a Grounder, cast aside by her own blood, and nearly sacrificed like trash.

Maybe especially because of that.

Suddenly, Leon reached out and grabbed Nikko’s hand. His grip was warm and firm, but not forceful. Like an anchor pulling someone away from a sinking abyss.

"I know the perfect place," he said with a small grin.

And before she could ask what he meant, before she could process what was happening, he pulled her away from that warehouse, from that nightmarish memory, from the pain that had become her home.

And she... didn’t resist.

Not a word. Not a step out of sync.

Because something in his voice sounded real. And for the first time in what felt like an eternity, Nikko felt her feet moving toward something she didn’t understand.

Hope.

Leon sat comfortably at the booth of a quiet little ice cream shop nestled in the heart of the capital.

Today, sitting across from him was a girl whose life had nearly been taken from her just an hour ago.

The server stood beside the table with his notepad in hand, his expression a carefully practiced mask of patience. He had been standing there for the past seven minutes, seven full minutes, watching as a ten-year-old boy deliberated over something with the gravity of a student who hadn’t read for their exams and had to guess every option correctly in a multiple-choice question

Why? Because Leon had just learned something that genuinely shook him.

Nikko had never tasted ice cream in her life.

To Leon, that was a tragedy.

"Ice cream," he had said, with a hand placed dramatically over his chest, "is the second most sweetest thing in the world. You should enjoy it too."

The first sweetest thing? That was a secret he wasn’t ready to share just yet.

So he vowed in that moment to make this first experience unforgettable. He combed through flavors with the intensity of a scholar, eyes flicking between options, considering the balance of taste, texture, and emotional impact. Finally, with a small, decisive sigh, he looked up.

"I think I know what you’ll like."

His gut told him so, and his gut had never failed him when it came to things that mattered. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ

He turned to the server, who resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

’It’s just ice cream,’ the man thought. But hey, if the kid was serious and the payment cleared, who was he to complain?

Leon placed the order: one bowl of rich chocolate for himself, and for Nikko a delicate duo of creamy vanilla and sweet strawberry.

A few minutes later, the server returned with the two bowls. He placed them on the table and left without a word.

Leon didn’t wait. He took a spoonful of chocolate and gave a satisfied nod before flashing a grin across the table.

"Bon appétit."

Nikko didn’t move at first. She just stared—at him, then at the bowl, then back again.

It felt unreal.

She’d seen more blood than sweetness. Her days were often cold, cruel, calculated. And now, there was... this. A bowl of innocence, of warmth, of something she never had.

Still hesitant, she picked up her spoon and scooped a small curl of the ice cream, her hands almost mechanical.

She hadn’t eaten in hours.

And while ice cream wasn’t what anyone would call a proper meal, something about it tugged at her hunger.

She brought it to her mouth.

The moment it touched her tongue, her life... changed.

The cold hit first, sharp and unexpected, but it melted almost instantly into a gentle wave of flavor. The vanilla wrapped around her like a soft blanket, soothing and kind. The strawberry followed, vibrant, playful, a kiss of something bright and untainted.

Nikko blinked. Her eyes shimmered.

And just for a moment, the deadness that had nested there cracked, like ice beneath a warm sun.

Then, quietly, she took another spoonful.

And then another.

Across the table, Leon watched with a small, quiet smile.

He didn’t need to say anything.

Because in that moment, spoon by spoon, he knew he had given her something no one ever had.

A reason to live.

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